The Vela Incident: Who Nuked the South Atlantic in 1979?

a reply to: moebius

Tunguska event

Early estimates of the energy of the air burst range from 10–15 megatons of TNT (42–63 petajoules) to 30 megatons of TNT (130 PJ),[7] depending on the exact height of burst estimated when the scaling-laws from the effects of nuclear weapons are employed.[7][8] However, modern supercomputer calculations that include the effect of the object's momentum find that more of the energy was focused downward than would be the case from a nuclear explosion and estimate that the airburst had an energy range from 3 to 5 megatons of TNT (13 to 21 PJ).[8]

The 15-megaton (Mt) estimate represents an energy about 1,000 times greater than that of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan—roughly equal to that of the United States' Castle Bravo (15.2 Mt) ground-based thermonuclear detonation on 1 March 1954, and about one-third that of the Soviet Union's Tsar Bomba explosion on October 30, 1961 (which, at 50 Mt, is the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated).[9]

Actually there is historical evidence to back up the idea it may have been something like that. Barring other explanations, it's as good a guess as any.

originally posted by: deltaalphanovember
a reply to: mirageman

Very nice post ...

I covered this in a thread a good few years back, but your post is so much more in-depth.

I still think South Africa and the Israelis were in this one together ... South Africa providing the support and the Israelis providing the bang.

Definitely these two... both racist apartheid states .

originally posted by: Spader

originally posted by: intrptr

Why does it have to be "nukes"?

More like a smallish rock like the one entered over Russia.

Here comes the Boom...

I’ll bet Tigra and Bunny loved that one. (Wow, I’m on a roll this morning)

I totally understood that reference

it was caused by the ufonauts just like the tunguska incident
no, i aint joking, sometimes truth is indeed stranger than fiction

a reply to: Blaine91555

I don't possess the scientific knowledge and data to categorically disprove that this event was caused by something like Tunguska.

However what seems apparent is that in the aftermath of the event no one suspected or talked about a meteorite exploding in the atmosphere on Sept 22nd 1979. The event caused deep concern in Washington and I'm sure that if a meteorite was involved then that would have been to the relief to everyone investigating the Vela Incident. Instead the administration went with a meteroid causing the false readings by striking the Vela satellite.

I did find a document The 1979 South Atlantic Flash..which discusses the case in scientific terms :

....What Vela 6911 detected was a light pattern that had the characteristic “double hump” shape associated with a nuclear explosion.

As a function of time, the observed light pattern of a nuclear test rises to an initial peak of luminosity with a subsequent decline due to the fireball being obscured by the shock wave (a thin layer of highly compressed air).

As the shock wave cools it becomes less opaque and the fireball is then increasingly visible, with luminosity rising to a second peak before declining monotonically.

However not everything pointed to a nuclear test. No radioactive debris was found in the area and other satellites did not detect the signature "double flash".

The document also focuses on the political situation at the time and how Israel was prime suspect for testing a nuke with South African assistance.

* The Strategic Arms Limitation (SALT) II Treaty had been signed but not ratified. This 'incident' created major problems for the Carter Administration. If it was a nuclear weapon and the perpetrators were Israel/South Africa, or even worse unknown, then it could potentially disrupt all the good work done going into an election year .

* The peace agreement between Egypt and Israel had only been brokered months earlier by President Carter. Revealing that Israel was a prime suspect in testing a nuclear weapon could have seriously threatened that agreement. Worse still it could return the Middle East into conflict again.

* Pakistan was known to be working on its own nuclear weapons program. The US State Dept. had even began reducing military and economic aid because of it. Any revelation of a 'rogue' test by Israel would have seriously damaged international relations with the Arab world. It would also cause untold damage with the unseen Israeli influence on successive US administrations that very few will admit to.

A particularly interesting comment is

On April 20, 1997, an article in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz quoted South African Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad as confirming that the VELA event was a nuclear test. The article said that Israel had helped South Africa develop its bomb designs in return for 500 tons of uranium and other assistance.

Although Pahad later claimed his statement had been taken out of context, the Ha’aretz article was referenced in a July 11, 1997 Los Alamos Laboratory newsletter under the headline: “Blast from the past: Lab scientists receive vindication”. This referred to earlier work by the laboratory concluding that a nuclear test had taken place on September 22, 1979. Dave Simons of the Nonproliferation and Arms Control Research and Development division said: “The whole federal laboratory community came to the conclusion that the data indicated a bomb”, and that “we were quite thoroughly convinced of our interpretation”.....

The problem is that even nearly 40 years after the event many documents have still not been released. The document even spells out what the problem is.

....One of the likely reasons that the U.S. government is withholding the declassification of relevant documents is to assist Israel to maintain its policy of opacity in nuclear affairs, a policy which had its origin during the Johnson presidency and was reinforced in a bargain made with the U.S. during the Nixon presidency. Its abandonment accompanied by the admission that Israel violated the Limited Test Ban Treaty would create some serious political fallout for both countries. But it is hard to argue that helping Israel in this way contributes to U.S. national security

Israel has literally held America by the bollocks for far too long!

originally posted by: humanoidlord
it was caused by the ufonauts just like the tunguska incident
no, i aint joking, sometimes truth is indeed stranger than fiction

I hope you are joking.

a reply to: mirageman

There are lots of possibilities, even France. France was under heavy criticism for their tests in those years. It's not inconceivable it was them trying to avoid international attention.

a reply to: Blaine91555

It's not inconceivable.

But do you seriously think the French were testing nukes in the South Atlantic in 1979?

There are lots of possibilities. Most of them are outlined in the OP.

However one of them seems the most likely by miles. The theory that South Africa and Israel conspired to create a secret nuclear test over the South Atlantic. America found out about it but did not want to upset the delicate political balance that existed in the world at the time. The decision to fudge everything looks to have done little good now. The Soviets invaded Afghanistan later that year and the Iranian Revolution resulted in an embarrassment and the end of the Carter Administration.

But there again no nuclear weapons have ever been used in conflict since WWII. So maybe we should look back and be thankful that sometimes things are covered up for the the greater good of mankind?

a reply to: mirageman

LINK

There were 210 French nuclear tests from 1960 through 1995. Seventeen of them were done in the Algerian Sahara between 1960 and 1966, starting in the middle of the Algerian War. One-hundred ninety-three were carried out in French Polynesia.[24][25]

LINK

1979-1980 1979–1980 22

22 test documented around that time.

Your theory, does it have any proof of any kind or is it just a theory off the top of peoples heads? Theories without any evidence are all likely just guesses based often on personal biases. If we don't know, we don't know, so one theory holds no more weight than any other.

a reply to: Blaine91555

What about Russia? They were not exactly honest about these things at that time. They are as likely as any other option?

a reply to: alldaylong

Why jump to such an extreme and outlandish explanation??????

a reply to: Blaine91555

m.jpost.com...

www.politico.com...

They never said conclusively that it was an Israeli test, but they certainly were leaning that way.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Despite the swirling allegations and suspicions, the mystery of the flash remained unsolved.

Without any proof and nothing but suspicions it's really still a complete unknown. Maybe in the future something will turn up.

a reply to: Blaine91555

No, there's no proof who did it, but the timing and the fact that Israel later offered weapons to South Africa makes them a highly likely candidate.

a reply to: ctj83

does a surface or subsurface ocean detonation leave much fallout

a reply to: proteus33

Depends almost entirely on the warhead. At least one test done in an oceanic area was detected by a U-2 that flew through the radiation unexpectedly.

South Africa...as a warning to those nations seeking to foment black agitation and regime change...sadly, it didn't work...the remaining weapons went to Israel.

a reply to: mirageman

Great write up, enjoyed the content.
Top quality work!
Keep it up!

a reply to: mirageman
Probably a natural phenomenon, sometimes things just go boom. And sometimes there pretty big. Most likely a meteor, or probably a massive storm could have fooled those satellites. Lightning can get pretty big, in fact. Here these guys think that the valles marineris on Mars was caused by cosmic lightning.


Lighing or lighting storms especially over the ocean can get pretty dam big. Even in cities, though it would not have the power to give out to much of a boom, for that split second they do pack quite a punch and release lots of energy sometimes. There are plenty of vids out there on giant storms or giant lightingbolts.

There was even a vid I seen some weeks ago were one was seen and captured by cameras from two cars miles apart, one by a cop dash cam which literally just blew and shoke the car up like in an earthquake and one from a pedestrian on a highway outside of town which you can see it arching across the sky for quite a while.

Ah couldn't find the video of that particular lighting strike, but found this of ball lightning going across a field. Looks pretty big to, or at least bigger then the usual baseball sized ones. But ya, I would not count out natural causes, does not have to be countries testing out there nukes, planet earth by itself is more then capable of putting out massive amounts of energy in certain situations.

a reply to: galadofwarthethird

Probably a natural phenomenon, sometimes things just go boom. And sometimes the[y']re pretty big......

The scientific evaluation of the incident which was linked to in the OP from Science & Global Security concludes this was a nuclear explosion because a natural event does not produce a double flash signature.

...The physics of these processes depends only on the total input energy and not on how it is produced. In particular, the maximum and minimum of the doublepeak flash do not depend on whether the input energy came from fission (e.g.,a Trinity-type device) or fusion (e.g., a modern thermonuclear device), and thus is independent of design features.

It is both the light intensity and its temporal variation that are unique to an atmospheric nuclear explosion, with the second peak lasting 100 times longer than the first and containing 99% of the energy. Other natural processes might be able to produce one or the other signature, but not both.